Nara Wening, one of Indonesia’s best-known television presenters, announced on Wednesday that she was cutting ties with furniture platform RumaRaya and would pay for up to 1,000 customers’ reservation refunds if the company failed to do so by Friday. Her announcement followed a flood of complaints about a promotion promising a “complete room” for Rp99,000 (about €5.60/$6.10).
RumaRaya’s campaign, launched on Monday, drew more than 18,400 paid reservations in 47 minutes, according to figures the company gave regulators. Buyers who reached checkout found that the amount bought only a reservation credit; the lowest qualifying furniture bundle cost Rp7.8 million (about €444/$485), before delivery. The campaign’s online advertisements had not made that distinction prominent, officials said.
The discount behind the offer
The Indonesian Consumer Fairness Commission said its first checks found that five of eight featured items had been assigned higher “before” prices shortly before the sale. A bed advertised at Rp5.9 million as 69% off had been listed at Rp6.1 million in the platform’s transactions during the previous month, the commission said. It has not yet made a final finding of wrongdoing.
The commission is also examining the product pages and checkout screens shown to customers. Its spokesperson, Rüya Ekşioğlu, said the promotion generated 24,600 attempts to complete an order and that 6,230 buyers had asked to cancel by Wednesday afternoon. The office has received 412 written complaints, including screenshots showing delivery charges added after customers selected a bundle.
For many buyers, the shock came only after the celebration had begun: a room advertised for less than the price of a lunch turned into a multi-million-rupiah checkout.
Star’s apology, buyers’ bills
Wening told her 21 million followers that she had understood the Rp99,000 price to cover a complete room. “I lent my face to an offer that families could not actually buy,” she said, adding that she would publish receipts for her promised refunds. She said she had not checked the checkout process herself before endorsing the campaign.
RumaRaya spokesperson Bence Faragó said the company had described the Rp99,000 payment as a reservation credit in its terms and was now offering full refunds. He said the firm had processed 4,090 cancellations by Wednesday and would remove the promotion while it reviewed “where the customer journey failed”. The company did not address the commission’s figures on earlier prices.
Jakarta resident Giaan Shukla said she paid the reservation charge after seeing Wening’s video, then left the checkout when a bedroom bundle and delivery pushed the total past Rp8 million. “The price in the video felt like a promise; the price on my screen felt like a trap,” she said. She has received the Rp99,000 refund but has not decided whether to accept a replacement voucher.
The commission has ordered RumaRaya to preserve its price and checkout records and submit a full refund list by Friday. Ekşioğlu said officials would decide next week whether to refer the case for penalties. The commission’s initial review suggests that customers who accepted vouchers may also be eligible for cash refunds.
RumaRaya says it will contact every reservation holder directly. For now, its promotion has been taken down, Wening’s endorsement has ended, and thousands of customers are waiting to learn whether a supposedly complete room was ever more than a price on a screen.
